Testing the Installation with AutoFM

After installing FMx-Auto you can confirm that everything
is set up properly by using the provided AutoFM sample files.

AutoFM
can be run manually from the FrameMaker interface as well as scripted
(using batch or other scripting languages). Sample files are provided
with the FMx-Auto installation and are found in the FMx-Auto_Sample.zip file
in the FrameMaker\DITA-FMx folder. After extracting
the sample files to a location on your file system (it doesn’t matter
where), start by performing the manual test described below.

The sample files provided are a small example of the type of
processing that can be achieved with DITA-FMx and FMx-Auto. The
source is in a dita folder, and the FrameMaker book
and chapter files are created in a book folder.

In the book folder is the ditafmx-bookbuild.ini file
which contains the instructions for generating the FM files. In
this case the DITA map is a bookmap, which contains a toc and indexlist
which become a proper generated TOC and Index file. The ditafmx-bookbuild.ini file
provides the instructions for creating those generated lists as
well as setting up the pagination and numbering in the chapter files.
The “book-build” INI file also specifies that a title page be added
to the generated book, and indicates that the metadata in the map be
used to update variables in the title page (book title, version,
date, copyright info, and more). It also specifies a ditaval file
to be used for the processing.

You can use this set of files as an example for setting up your
own scripted builds.

Note: The sample DITA map includes toc and indexlist elements. In
order to be compatible with all DITA-FMx installations, these booklist
elements were added using the “placeholder file” feature that was
implemented in an early release of DITA-FMx. These placeholder files are
no longer a DITA-FMx requirement, and to be more DITA-compliant
we recommend not using this feature. To turn off this feature, set
the ditafmx.ini parameter INIOnly/UseBooklistPlaceholder set to
0.

Manual Testing

Open the sample-autofm.xml file
in FrameMaker.

If the AutoFM structure application is installed
properly, this file should open without prompting for a structure
application. Review the structure and available elements.

This should open and convert the sample DITA map into a book,
then generate a PDF.

You’ll see the message “EXIT operator
is only available in scripted mode.” This is to be expected and
is as designed.

If this test is successful, try scripted testing.

FM9 ISSUE: FrameMaker 9 seems to
have a problem keeping lock files (*.lck) around after closing FrameMaker
when using AutoFM in the “manual testing” mode. After completing
the manual test, check for errant lock files and delete them before
continuing. This problem does not seem to occur when running in
scripted testing mode. We hope to address this properly in a future
update, but you may want to add some code to your “build” batch
file that checks for and deletes any *.lck files before starting
the build process.

Scripted Testing

Run the appropriate build-sample-fm<ver>.bat batch
file.

The sample batch files read the path to the FrameMaker
executable from the registry, so in most cases they should “just
work.” If the batch file doesn’t run properly, you may need to edit
it to suit your system.

The batch file should start FrameMaker
and pass the sample AutoFM script file name to it as a command line
parameter. This will open the AutoFM script file and execute the
instructions in that file. This should do the same thing you saw
in manual testing, but will also exit FrameMaker when the processing
has completed.

Important: Windows 7 users will
likely see the “Application has stopped responding” message from
the OS when FrameMaker exits. To prevent this message, perform the minor
registry tweak described in the Troubleshooting topic in the AutoFM
documentation.